Think: Always one of the best articles of the year, MIT’s list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2021, does not disappoint. Regardless of your business, you need to be thinking about the impact of at least a few of these breakthroughs — Messenger RNA vaccines, TikTok algorithms, Lithium-metal batteries, Data Trusts, Green Hydrogen, Digital Contact Tracing, Hyper-Accurate GPS Positioning, Remote Everything, and Multi-Skilled AI.
Think Harder: A lot of people hype self-driving cars (myself included), but are autonomous vehicles a red herring? Not exactly, but this article does a good job of looking at how other technologies besides the self-driving car will transform how and where we live, work, and play in the near future.
Think Sustainably: As I explain in this article–Unilever’s “Compass” Offers Other Businesses a Sustainable Path into the Future–doing the right thing on behalf of the planet is also great for a businesses’ short-term bottomline as well as its long-term survivability.
Think the Unthinkable: This article, The Moments That Could Have Accidentally Ended Humanity, is quite sobering and it serves as a powerful reminder of why we must all take the time to think about unthinkable things–like the accidental destruction of the world. (Hint: We have been closer to destruction than most people care to admit.)
Heart-Centered Thinking: Recently, I saw a hand-painted sign on the streets of Los Angeles saying “I can’t wait to hug you again.” It got me thinking about the future role of human touch in the post-pandemic world. If you are inclined to think about such things, I invite you to read this article, The Need to Touch. The author (a scientist) believes we will experience a “renaissance of touch.” (I believe she is correct.)
Until next week: Don’t stop thinking about the future! But also never forget “It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than think your way into a new way of acting!”
